A quality management system (QMS) is a collection of business processes focused on consistently meeting customer requirements and enhancing their satisfaction. It is aligned with an organization's purpose and strategic direction. It is expressed as the organizational goals and aspirations, policies, processes, documented information, and resources needed to implement and maintain it. Early quality management systems emphasized predictable outcomes of an industrial product production line, using simple statistics and random sampling. By the 20th century, labor inputs were typically the most costly inputs in most industrialized societies, so focus shifted to team cooperation and dynamics, especially the early signaling of problems via a continual improvement cycle. In the 21st century, QMS has tended to converge with sustainability and transparency initiatives, as both investor and customer satisfaction and perceived quality are increasingly tied to these factors. Of QMS regimes, the ISO 9000 family of standards is probably the most widely implemented worldwide – the ISO 19011 audit regime applies to both and deals with quality and sustainability and their integration.
Total quality management (TQM) consists of organization-wide efforts to "install and make permanent climate where employees continuously improve their ability to provide on demand products and services that customers will find of particular value." "Total" emphasizes that departments in addition to production are obligated to improve their operations; "management" emphasizes that executives are obligated to actively manage quality through funding, training, staffing, and goal setting. While there is no widely agreed-upon approach, TQM efforts typically draw heavily on the previously developed tools and techniques of quality control. TQM enjoyed widespread attention during the late 1980s and early 1990s before being overshadowed by ISO 9000, Lean manufacturing, and Six Sigma.
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recognizes U.S. organizations in the business, health care, education, and nonprofit sectors for performance excellence. The Baldrige Award is the highest formal recognition of the performance excellence of both public and private U.S. organizations given by the President of the United States. It is administered by the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, which is based at and managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), formerly known as the National Association of Cost Accountants (NACA), is a professional organization of accountants.
The CFA Institute is a global, not-for-profit professional organization that provides investment professionals with finance education. The institute aims to promote standards in ethics, education, and professional excellence in the global investment services industry. Since 1945, the institute has published the peer-reviewed, quarterly journal, the Financial Analysts Journal. It also publishes the Enterprising Investor blog.
Project Management Professional (PMP) is an internationally recognized professional designation offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI). As of 31 July 2020, there are 1,036,368 active PMP-certified individuals and 314 chartered chapters across 214 countries and territories worldwide.
Prometric, also known as Prometric Testing, is a U.S.-based company operating in the test administration industry. The corporate headquarters are located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The company manages a vast network of test centers, with thousands of sites in 160 countries, where various examinations are conducted, including those for India-Common Entrance Test, North American Veterinary Licensing Examination, and Secondary School Admission Test.
Certification is part of testing, inspection and certification and the provision by an independent body of written assurance that the product, service or system in question meets specific requirements. It is the formal attestation or confirmation of certain characteristics of an object, person, or organization. This confirmation is often, but not always, provided by some form of external review, education, assessment, or audit. Accreditation is a specific organization's process of certification. According to the U.S. National Council on Measurement in Education, a certification test is a credentialing test used to determine whether individuals are knowledgeable enough in a given occupational area to be labeled "competent to practice" in that area.
Certified Quality Engineer, often abbreviated CQE, is a certification given by the American Society for Quality (ASQ). These engineers are professionally educated in quality engineering and quality control.
Armand Vallin Feigenbaum was an American quality control expert and businessman. He devised the concept of Total Quality Control which inspired Total Quality Management.
Howard Malcolm "Mac" Baldrige Jr. was an American businessman. He served as the United States Secretary of Commerce from 1981 until he died in 1987. He was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1988.
C. Jackson "Jack" Grayson, Jr. was the chairman of APQC, dean of two business schools, head of the U.S. Price Commission (1971), a farmer, newspaper reporter and FBI agent. In 1977 he founded APQC as a private sector, non-profit organization.
Dorian Shainin was an American quality consultant, aeronautics engineer, author, and college professor most notable for his contributions in the fields of industrial problem solving, product reliability, and quality engineering, particularly the creation and development of the "Red X" concept.
Paul George Benson is an American academic, and the former President of the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Partnership for Excellence is a nonprofit organization that administers a state-level award program for performance excellence in Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia. The award is based on the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, which are developed and maintained by the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, a program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Excellence Canada is a nonprofit organization that specializes in the training, implementation and certification of organizational excellence in Canada. Excellence Canada is also the custodian and adjudicator of the Canada Awards for Excellence, under the Patronage of David Johnston C.C., C.M.M., C.O.M., C.D., the Governor General of Canada.
The National Council on Strength and Fitness (NCSF) is a member-driven organization of exercise professionals located in Coral Gables, Florida. The NCSF board for certification oversees the National Commission for Certifying Agencies accredited credentialing programs and advocates on behalf of exercise professionals. In 2004, the NCSF organization expanded internationally, offering exercise professional credentialing worldwide. In partnership with Prometric Testing Services the organization provides accredited certification exams in over 10,000 centers within its global network.
Debashis Sarkar is an Indian author, columnist and management consultant. He is the author of 11 books, including Building a Lean Service Enterprise – Reflections of a Lean Management Practitioner (2016), How Can I Help You – 5 Mistakes to Avoid in Customer Service (2013), Lessons in Lean Management (2012), Lean for Service Organizations and Offices–Holistic Approach for Achieving Operational Excellence (2008), 5S for Service Organizations and Offices–A Lean Look at Improvement (2006) and Lessons in Six Sigma (2004). He is noted for his work in Lean management and Operational excellence. Sarkar is an American Society for Quality (ASQ) Fellow. In recognition of his book, Lessons in Lean Management (2012), he was awarded the ASQ Crosby Medal in 2014. For his contribution to the field of quality, he also received the first D.L. Shah Quality Champion Platinum Award from Quality Council of India for the year 2017–2018. He has been credited for conceptualizing the DEB-LOREX Model.
Thomas Pyzdek is an American author and management consultant. He is best known for being an advocate of operational excellence and is an author of several books, hundreds of articles and papers on those topics.
